She blamed pressures on the NHS and other Liverpool hospitals for the problem. She said: "It is many more than we would like, but it is just an indication of the general pressures on the system.

"Because we are a specialist trust, quite a lot of patients are referred to us from other hospitals, so strictly speaking they should go back to those hospitals when they have been treated.

"We have been finding it increasingly difficult to get them back because of the pressure the hospitals are under.

"We do keep them longer, so a lot are fit to go home at discharge but if we can't find intermediate care for them or social services support they do block beds.

"Non-availability of beds on wards and in intensive care does impact on operations."

Mrs Abendstern said the centre had put a bed utilisation project in place to try and halt bed blocking.

She said: "Some of it is about managing the patient journey better and being more efficient.

"For example, when patients come in for tests or minor procedures, instead of having them sitting in a hospital bed we have started getting them in on an outpatient basis.

"We have introduced a discharge lounge because we found patients were taking up bed space waiting for an ambulance or prescription before going home.

"We have also freed up beds by allowing neurophysiology patients, who need their brain patterns monitored, to take the equipment home instead of staying in hospital."

Battling bed blocking>

MORE than 11,400 patients blocked beds at Merseyside's four biggest hospital trusts last year.

They clogged up beds at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust, Aintree Hospitals NHS Trust, Wirral Hospitals NHS Trust and St Helens and Knowsley Hospitals NHS Trust.

It meant that thousands of people due to undergo non-emergency surgery had their operations cancelled or postponed.

But hospital and social services bosses are quick to stress that the situation had greatly improved over the past few months.

At the Royal the average number of patients blocking beds each week almost halved from 61 per week in the first quarter of last year to 34 in the final quarter.

Worst in Merseyside was St Helens and Knowsley Hospitals NHS Trust, with an average of 3,536 delayed discharges over the year, reaching a peak of 91 in one week.

They were followed by 2,860 at Arrowe Park, 2,704 at the Royal and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust and 2,392 at Aintree Hospitals NHS Trust.

The bed blocking has led to thousands of operations being cancelled in the region, although hospital chiefs today said it was impossible to put a figure on those postponed due to bed blocking alone.

At St Helens and Knowsley Hospitals NHS Trust, more than 1,083 operations were cancelled over the past 12 months, although bed blocking was not the only reason.

Veronica Jackson, assistant executive director of social services at Liverpool city council, said improvements had been made recently because they were working hard with hospitals to solve problems for the first time.

She said: "We are working very closely with hospitals to see how we can work smarter to make sure patients are assessed by an integrated team and the right package of care is put in place.

"This is the first time there has been a proper integrated approach and the first time we've really tried to make it work.

"We are reviewing existing systems and putting changes in place to make sure the system works. For example, one of the things we've done is put occupational therapy equipment in hospitals so it is on hand and there is no delay waiting for this when a patient needs to go home."

Mrs Jackson said an extra #900,000 from the government to tackle bed blocking had also helped.

She added: "Over the winter we were able to buy more care beds, put on extra social services staff over the holiday period and buy some more smaller bits of equipment.

"We also changed our two rehabilitation centres and increased the number of overnight beds and day care beds by 10 each."

All four hospital trusts said they would continue to work with social services to reduce bed blocking further next year.